


worth fighting (for)

by foundCarcosa



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 03:23:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2532278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>London Shepard's changed, and Zaeed's determined to get to the bottom of it -- even if it means risking getting spaced for outrageous insubordination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	worth fighting (for)

They’d called her a hero and a survivor after Mindoir and after Akuze, and for a long time, she didn’t think anything could feel worse than that.

But the more heroics she actually performed, the less heroic she felt. She saved the Council, but the reporter that hounded her at the Citadel every opportunity she got, al-Jilani, went on and on about the human casualties as if London didn’t have the name of every ship that had fallen in the defence of Destiny Ascension burned into her very grey matter. The Council itself only seemed superficially grateful for her existence, dismissing her concerns for the rest of the galaxy as delusional at best — but it hadn’t been so far-fetched when _they_ were in danger.

Cerberus’ logo emblazoned on her ship and her reconstructed body made her an enemy before she even opened her mouth. All her well-learnt diplomacy and the goodness of her colony-bred heart were dismissed in favour of long-harboured prejudice, hatred based firmly upon sins of her puppetmasters. No one saw that she was merely a tool of theirs — her agency had been taken with her life, taken as soon as Lawson and her team recovered the body of Commander Shepard — not a woman, London, but a legend, an effigy they could use.

And no more was there Kaidan, who'd quietly supported her without judgement or fear; or Liara, who had seen into her and knew her; or Ashley, who'd liked to tell her stories because she knew London would listen; or Wrex, whose presence had been fearsome at first but soon became comforting — a krogan on your side was infinitely better than the alternative, and Wrex had even come to _like_ her after a fashion, probably because she laughed at his jokes.

Garrus had returned, and that was a comfort; but then there was Jack, who derided her for her sentimentality and passion for others’ lives; Grunt, who made one too many turian-killing jokes for her comfort; Kasumi, beautiful and unknowable, only just human enough; Miranda, who seemed more interested in what London could do than who London was; Jacob, whom she suspected fetishised her; and foul-mouthed derisive Zaeed, who had seemed the very worst of the lot, at first.

But Zaeed was the first one to notice when she changed, and the first one to speak up about it.

—

"Hm—? Oh!" Kelly jumped in her chair, flushing. She should have been used to people walking up behind her by now; there was more than one stealth-inclined individual in Commander Shepard’s employ. But Zaeed Massani was more unsettling than anyone else; Jack, for example, was loud and crass and didn’t care what anyone thought about it, a certainty which had its own appeal, but Zaeed was grit and danger wrapped in thin silk — you _knew_ what was just under the surface, and that was the scary part.

"Don’t get any ideas, Chambers," Zaeed warned, straddling the chair next to her and unwrapping an energy bar, "I’m still not lettin’ you poke around in my head. I’m here about the Commander."

"The… Commander?" Kelly tilted her head, but didn’t quite look at him. Something about Zaeed made her less inclined to make eye contact with him, and it had nothing to do with his eyes, like he thought, but more to do with what was behind them. "Is something wrong?"

"You can’t tell?" He snorted, shaking his head and gnawing off a chunk of the dense protein product. "What kinda head-shrinker are you."

"I’m not a head-shrinker," she replied, exasperated. "I told you that before. I’m here in a—"

"I know, I know. You told me before, remember? Point is, I’ve been goading that woman for what seems like days now. She hasn’t bitten once."

Kelly wrinkled her brow. “Meaning?”

"I like to mess with her. Get her goat. She’s cute when she’s self-righteous." He took another big bite, chewing. The momentary silence gave Kelly a little too much time to think about Zaeed Massani’s designs upon their commander. "But she doesn’t seem to care anymore. When Jack first got here, all I had to do was say one off-colour thing about the goddamn girl, and Miss Devil's Advocate would go off like a firecracker."

Kelly smiled, remembering.

"Yeah, exactly. Know what she does now, though? Shrugs. Goes back to business. She’s getting brittle, Chambers, and I want you to do something about it before we all lose out."

"Me?" Kelly blanched. "Commander Shepard… doesn’t speak to me anymore. I mean, she speaks to me, but not… the way she used to…"

"And that don’t bother you none?" Zaeed balled up the wrapper in his large hands, aimed, and fired it at the crewman on the other side of the mess. The boy started to react, saw him, and thought better of it. "Way I see it, all of you are out of your goddamn gourds."

But it _did_ bother her; she’d just assumed that the stress of the missions was getting to the commander, and she had no more time for frivolous activity. Still, Kelly Chambers did not feel what she was doing for Normandy’s motley crew was frivolous, and she knew London Shepard didn’t feel that way, either. Not… when she was herself, at least.

" _You_ do something about it," she said before she could stop herself. She almost regretted it.

"Oh, yeah?" She could feel Zaeed’s sharp gaze, but still didn’t turn her head to meet it. "Like what?"

"Make her mad."

—

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

He could have used more finesse, admittedly, and he knew it. But there was no point, not now. Kelly Chambers thought that the way to draw London back out of whatever black hole she was falling into was to piss her off, and Zaeed agreed. Their relationship had begun with him pissing her off, after all.

London glanced up from the desk. “I didn’t give you access to my cabin so you could barge in here and get nasty with me, Massani.”

There was sourness in her tone, but far from the visceral reaction he’d expected. The emotion was gone. She was reacting like the commander they’d made her into, instead of the woman she’d insisted on remaining throughout everything.

But Zaeed had a long career of pissing people off. He wouldn’t be deterred. “Smells like canned death in here.” He tossed himself onto the bed like an irreverent teenager, propping his booted feet up and linking his hands behind his head, sighing loudly. “You do know there’s a whole rest of the ship where people do weird shit like eat and socialise and act like they’re halfway human, right?”

"Isn’t that where you belong, then?" London replied pointedly, drawing her attention back to her terminal.

"Don’t you belong right here?" Zaeed slapped his thigh loudly, trying a different tactic. "Come on, Commander. Bring that glorious arse over here, I’ve—"

"What on Earth do you _want,_ Zaeed.” She shut off the terminal and glared at him, but there wasn’t enough force behind the glare to suit him. He locked eyes with her and pantomimed a kiss.

"You, girl. What else?"

"Don’t call me ‘girl’."

"You gonna make me?"

"What are you, twelve?"

"Old enough to know better, young enough to not give a fuck. In fact, _fuck_ this.” Zaeed was off the bed in a heartbeat, across the room in two; London turned her chair to meet him but wasn’t fast enough to stop him from snatching her out of it. “I said, what the _hell_ is _wrong_ with you?”

"Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?" London snapped, wrenching out of his grip, but he only grabbed her again, walking her into the wall, trapping her between him and it.

"I don’t know who I’m talking to, and that’s the goddamn problem, isn’t it." Zaeed kept her pinned with his lower half and framed her face with his hands, staring. "You know Kelly sent me up here with the express fuckin’ purpose of pissing you off, and for the last five minutes all you’ve done is dead-fish at me. Where the hell is London fucking Shepard?"

 _“Dead,”_ she spat in his face, and ironically life bled back into her eyes, sharpening them, bringing with it anger, and more importantly, pain.

"Dead? Yeah? Then fucking _die,_ and stop this goddamn charade, huh?” London started to push at him, seething, and Zaeed pushed back. “Oh, ho, not so dead after all? Dead women don’t fight, isn’t that right? A dead woman wouldn’t give a goddamn what I’m saying, isn’t that right?”

 _“Stop_ it, Zaeed,” London shouted, shoving, and Zaeed let her up, just a bit, just enough for her to push him off once and for all, but she didn’t. She glared at him, two parts furious and one part astonished, and it’s the astonished part he locked onto, because that was the part he didn’t understand.

"What, didn’t think I had it in me?"

"No," she responded, then pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as she tried to stem the tidal flood of emotions that threatened to spill out of her. "To care about me enough to _fight_ me like this? No.

"I got used to everyone being kind to me. And then the worlds changed, and I… I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t adjust. I wanted… I don’t know. I guess I was being childish, but I wanted the way it was back. And I was angry that no one seemed to care that I’d been spaced, I’d been resurrected by a terrorist group that I’d fought against in my first life, I’d been turned into a figurehead of a human being…"

"Hell, we all care about that," Zaeed snorted, then amended, "okay, maybe some of us don’t — still not sure what Jack’s M.O. is, and Grunt’s a goddamn krogan —"

"I don't know, Zaeed. It's difficult to tell, being surrounded by so many people who insist they're out for themselves and themselves only. I... thought you just liked having sex with me. And I was fine with that! Or... I thought I was fine with it, I guess."

Zaeed grunted, acknowledging without too much thought. He'd think about it later. "Well, like they always say -- if you don’t open your mouth, London, you ain’t gettin’ fed."

"How do I ask people for that? I’m the Commander, I’m supposed to—"

"Fuck all that. You want something from me, you ask for it. That’s what I’m here for, right? You want me to slap you back to reality, I will. You want me to… I don’t know, hug you or some silly nonsense like that, I’ll do it."

"Why?" London had the nerve to ask, and Zaeed glowered.

"You’re really gonna try and make me say it, aren’t you. I’m a mercenary, and I do anything for the right price, yeah? Well, you’re goddamn priceless."

London stared at him, then snorted a laugh that surprised even her. “That’s your worst one yet, Massani.”

"Yeah, whatever. Now, I meant what I said earlier…" He indicated the bed with a jerk of his head, smirking, and when he pressed her against the wall this time, she pressed back, linking her arms around his neck and breathing in his scent as if it was her first breath in a long time. Love for him boiled up in her in a rush, fierce and overwhelming — there had been no one like him before, and there would be no one like him again, and she knew that now, more than ever—

"Quit goddamn crying, love, you’re gonna give me a complex," he murmured in typical Zaeed fashion as he kissed her, and she sucked her teeth and shoved at him and laughed, and laughing and crying felt better than anything had felt in weeks.


End file.
